CHICAGO — The Rev. George Clements helped propel the Black Catholic movement, created the “One Church, One Child” initiative urging adoption and, against church practice, adopted children himself.

Those headline-grabbing and sometimes polarizing moves served as cover for the late South Side pastor to orchestrate a “decades-long child sex ring” at his parish, according to a new series of lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Chicago.

“The charismatic local icon, civil rights leader, famed for his unprecedented adoption of four children, was an absolute imposter and probably the most prolific child molester in the history of the Archdiocese of Chicago,” said Sean O’Malley, a lawyer at Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge, which announced the suits on Tuesday.

Installed as pastor of the now-former Holy Angels Parish in 1969 after a blistering campaign by his supporters, Clements served in that role until he departed 22 years later. It was during those years that the activist priest used the Holy Angels school as the setting for near-daily sexual abuse, according to the suits.

Altogether, the law firm said it has more than 100 clients alleging abuse by Clements or his associates. The children were as young as 5 at the time of the alleged abuse.

The lawyers announced suits for seven of them, though as of Tuesday evening, only two appeared to have been filed. They also allege that the archdiocese failed to take serious action because of the students’ race and poverty.

Soon after gaining the reins of the parish, Clements picked a new principal, Paul Smith. Together, they implemented a disciplinarian regime at the school, and frequent corporal punishment became a pretext for pulling aside young boys for sexual abuse, the lawyers allege.

In 1972, another priest started living at Holy Angels’ rectory. Much like Clements, the Rev. Kenneth Brigham had risen up the Catholic ladder on the South Side, but by then Brigham had departed his previous parish under the cloud of sexual abuse claims, according to the complaint.

The three men began to host small parties for students in the rectory, during which they would isolate the children and sexually abuse them, according to the claims.

Brigham left Holy Angels in 1978. But a “multidimensional sex ring operation” continued there, the lawyers allege.

In one example, Clements started abusing a sixth grade boy in the altar boys’ changing area by groping him “under the pretext of arranging the victim’s altar boy uniform,” the complaint reads. Clements is accused of escalating the frequent abuse into making the boy perform oral sex.

It was a pattern repeated throughout the new claims with stunning regularity.

The grooming for one third-grade boy escalated into Clements “ritualistically” performing oral sex on the boy for three years, according to the complaint. And after those years of abuse by Clements ended, the principal, Smith, began to molest him, the suit says.

The men also allegedly targeted children who didn’t attend the school, but their methods sometimes diverged, according to the complaint: Clements offered one-on-one mentorship to young boys and proceeded to rape them; Smith would call on children to do chores for him, another pretext for abuse.

Clements departed Holy Angels in 1991, and in many ways the man who took his place reflected Clements’ legacy. John Calicott quickly became beloved at Holy Angels and in Chicago’s Black Catholic population. He also preyed on young boys, according to the complaint.

Unlike the men before him, however, Calicott faced a sexual abuse claim that became public. In 1993, a man accused Calicott of abusing him as a boy, starting in 1976. The claims made their way through the archdiocese’s new policy for handling sexual abuse, and the archdiocese placed him on leave in 1994.

Although he had once acknowledged some misconduct, the archdiocese reinstated him the following year anyway. The Holy Angels congregation was overjoyed at his return, the Tribune reported at the time.

After the controversy, Calicott continued the abuse, “including casual genital fondling that Calicott performed openly and notoriously,” the complaint reads. In 2002, under new guidelines adopted amid the global outcry over sexual abuse in the church, the archdiocese tried to remove him from Holy Angels.

Calicott appealed but failed. He died in 2024, according to the complaint. The other men have also since died.

Clements died in 2019, months after the archdiocese started investigating him over an abuse claim. The archdiocese settled an allegation against Clemens in 2022, the Tribune reported at the time.

Smith, the principal, was killed at home in a 1996 homicide, while Brigham died 10 years later.

The archdiocese did not address the latest claims directly when reached by the Tribune Tuesday, but said that many of the allegations it receives are from “decades ago” and that it does not tolerate “behavior that could pose a risk to children.”

“The protection of children is one of our highest callings and a critical ministry of the church,” the archdiocese wrote in a statement. “Our protocols and policies for child safety, adopted in 1992, have served as a national and global model. Prompt action is taken to report all allegations to law enforcement. Abuse survivors are connected to support and social services, including therapy at the archdiocese’s expense.”

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